Discussion
@mactunag Sadly it isn't.
But we also didn't help ourselves. I had a client who brought in a new manager. I explained a little about our background and my heart sank as he went "Open Source right". It was the tied tone of someone who'd been evangelised at and wasn't ready to listen. I fully expected at that point to lose the client.
Thankfully I turned that relationship around. By being helpful and carefully never mentioning the software. Easier when you're providing an IMAP service.
The basic problem is that open source also sucks, just in a different way.
The most usable open source things in an organizational context are things like LibreOffice or MySQL that mimic (bad) commercial software or standard setups. Otherwise the organization can't use them because too few people are already familiar with them.
People in the organization are familiar with corporate software because of decades-long advertising and use of that software, including the "free software for nonprofits" (or students, or just installed on every PC you bought) arrangements that started this thread.
That's not good, but what are you going to do about it? Retrain everyone?
That's why widely used open source software is either never seen by anyone but an expert, or mimics commercial software.
I believe it would be useful to see people opening their eyes and start using their heads to think and do different.
@richpuchalsky @onepict this just isn't true. There's *millions* of open source systems out there you're using right now whether you know it or not. They run Facebook and Netflix and Google. The entire web is based on open source systems. Almost every NAS or disk system is open source or based on it, as is much of a modern router. This immensely lacks perspective.
#opensource #freesoftware #ossdesktop
@mikebabcock @richpuchalsky Yes, but what's the software they perceive that they use every day?
It is office and in particular Outlook.
In the Windows ecosystem.
When I started in the 90s we had DOS and Unix. Microsoft changed the landscape.
People see websites and commercial hardware like NAS as separate.
@richpuchalsky Yes.
Other than spreadsheets, I've always found word niggly to use. But then I used to use WordPerfect.
For the majority of my stuff now I use markdown.
Although most folks are used to OFFICE. I kinda wish we could move off that stack. I'm hopeful for @CryptPad in that regard. Although getting folks used to alternatives takes empathy and training materials. Not just documentation.
Onboarding for businesses needs more than RTFM.
@richpuchalsky Plus yes, our Software is shit in a different way.
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